ULTRAVOX - SYSTEMS OF ROMANCE

Ultravox – Systems of Romance

Released: 1978

Systems of Romance was one of the most important albums to come out of the post-punk period. It is an album that would shape a decade – without it, music in the 1980s may have been radically different.

The band’s previous albums, Ultravox! and Ha! Ha! Ha! were largely fuelled by punk, with only tracks like “My Sex” and “I Want To Be A Machine” hinting at what would follow. The addition of guitarist Robin Simon towards the end of the 1970s signalled a new phase for the band, as their sound became more defined – and more electronic.

When I first heard Systems of Romance, I thought “It’s just like Gary Numan...” then later realised that Ultravox had beaten Numan to it by a year, with Numan openly admitting that Systems of Romance was the one that influenced his chart-topping albums, Replicas and The Pleasure Principle. My first impressions were also that it sounded like a cross between Roxy Music and David Bowie – though a Bowie yet to emerge (Lodger, Scary Monsters), although his influence was clearly apparent.

This was the last album Chorley-born vocalist John Foxx would record with the band – but in many ways, it was already starting to sound like a record of his own. Songs such as “The Quiet Men” and “Dislocation” started lyrical themes and concepts that would be recurrent in Foxx’s later work, and even the lyrics to “Can’t Stay Long” hinted at his plans to escape into his own world. By their final tour in 1979, two new songs, “Touch and Go” and “He’s A Liquid” had been introduced in to the live set, which would eventually be recorded by Foxx for his seminal solo debut, Metamatic.

Kraftwerk producer Conny Plank’s influence on Systems of Romance album still holds it together today, as it certainly doesn’t sound its age. Foxx’s own artwork for the album was also a contrast to what had gone before, and here we also see the image of an illuminated city – a scenario in which many of his future songs would be set. The serif typeface and black “framing” of the images would reprise on Foxx’s second album, The Garden. Through Systems of Romance, a blueprint for John Foxx’s style music and graphics, had clearly been laid down.